Author: Carla Jablonski
No of Pages: 246
Release Date: 11 January 2007
WHEN DOES ESCAPE BECOME OBSESSION?
Kia is searching for an escape. From her mother’s cancer. From her father’s apathy. From her own rage.
The pressure is building. There’s a craving in her veins, a secret urge. She needs a way to let the inside out. But she knows she must resist. She knows she must find another way.
When she becomes immersed in an underground scene – Goths who live as vampires – Kia thinks she’s finally found that way.
At the centre of everything is sexy and mysterious Damon. With his otherworldly presence he pulls Kia deep into the night, into a world where the unbelievable can be believed, the unreal made real, until Kia herself can no longer draw the line.
My Thoughts:
Although not what I expected, Thicker Than Water drew me in and kept me coming back for more.
Kia is struggling. Her mum is dying of cancer and her Dad doesn’t really know what he’s doing. She has a couple of close friends but she can’t even tell them her deepest thoughts or troubles. One day at the hospital she meets a girl who invites her to a vampire party.
Kia is intrigued by the idea so goes along with her friends and for the first time in a long time, feels accepted. As Kia gets pulled deeper though she starts to reorganise her priorities, the feeling she gets when she is with the “vampires” is too good, and she always wants more.
Kia starts to forget about everything else with her obsession with the vampires and it doesn’t go unnoticed, but she doesn’t care. Until Kia is so far in she doesn’t know where the line between real life and make believe is drawn.
Kia is both a likeable and an unlikeable character. She is strong in the fact that she puts on a good face when it comes to dealing with people and doesn’t burden people with her issues. But on top of that she is also quite selfish. She thinks only of herself and even when she realises that she hasn’t gone to see her dying mother in over two weeks she still carries on doing whatever she wants.
The other thing I didn’t like about Kia was her willingness to push her new vampiric beliefs on everyone after telling her best friend Aaron that Wicca was stupid.
Thicker Than Water was a very interesting dive into the world of a vampire cult. They bit each other, drank blood (mostly fake though), had houses with “Royal Courts” and even almost a pecking order. Kia quickly rose through those ranks through her association with Damon, a vampire DJ who ran a lot of the parties, DJ at most of them and even hosted some very exclusive ones.
Thicker Than Water held an unrelenting mystery of is it real? Through Kia’s eyes it is definitely understandable that she started to fall into the trap. Even I did.
I think that’s why I got through Thicker Than Water so quickly, even though Kia was a bit annoying, I had to know if it was real.
Thicker Than Water pulled me along with its very clever lure, Kia grated on my nerves a little but other than that it was a very fast-paced, extremely interesting read.
